In 2026, I will be full-time self-employed for the first time in a decade.

There are lots of reasons, but In short, this is primarily because of 3 things:

1. AI has turned the foundation of my 20+ year career into sand. A large chunk of the way developers provide value (writing and maintaining code) can be relatively easily done with AI now. It’s not 100% yet (and may never be), but the reality is that even at 50% usefulness, far fewer developers are needed than before to achieve the same or better results, and that’s only accounting for the code itself. The fallout from this in our industry is only just beginning, and will accelerate quickly.

2. The most important future skill will be a mastery of leveraging AI to get the results you want. This means building and trying lots of new things with it and applying it in new and fun ways. This is difficult to do within a traditional job role where you still have set tasks and responsibilities, and the job is mostly not building and trying new things. AI is a seismic shift. I feel like our industry is at a critical juncture, and I think it’s a good time to learn and explore with AI. The future will be bifurcated into those who can use AI effectively and those who cannot. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of that line.

3. BudgetSheet – my SaaS product that connects your bank data to Google Sheets – is growing and doing well, and I want to push it further with more focus and marketing efforts so it (and other projects I make exploring AI) can be my full-time income. BudgetSheet is currently half of what I need, and I have a long personal runway, so I feel like now is the time to give this a shot.

While exploring and building with AI, I am also keeping a portion of my schedule open for select contract opportunities. Reach out if you need anything, or if you want to explore how AI can help your business get new insights, fill in gaps, connect disjointed systems, and/or automate processes that are painful.

Thank you to all my previous co-workers and everyone who has supported me on my journey so far. I am looking forward to staying connected, sharing what I learn along the way, and hopefully collaborating with many of you in new and unexpected ways. Look for more posts from me here and on LinkedIn if you want to stay updated on what I am working on next.

Here’s to new beginnings and the adventure ahead! 🚀

Note: This was posted on LinkedIn first as an announcement to my professional network, and now I am also posting it here.

Post Photo by Amy Lister on Unsplash